For better or worse…. The Hollywood Reporter writes that a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie is in the works, with Paramount Pictures having earned the rights to the franchise in order to bring the world of the horror classic to a modern audience.
The new film will be the first under the studio’s new label, Paramount Primal, which will “partner with up-and-coming storytellers as well as established filmmakers to produce smartly budgeted films across a variety of genres, including horror, comedy, action, and grounded science fiction.” (Read: low-budget filmmaking!) This initiative is led by J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, who produced Zach Cregger’s breakout film Barbarian.
There are no details right now so don’t get fooled by internet memes saying that Robert Englund is coming back because we have no idea who will be involved in and what fashion.
But hear us out, if they want to make this successful just hire on Michael Flanagan..
We already know that YouTubers have been a big splash in the horror world this year . Executives noticed too because it seems to be the best way to make money with the least amount of their work possible…
But much more appears to be coming.. from the Journal:
Producer Aaron Koontz made another movie with a YouTube creator two years ago, called “Shelby Oaks,” for which he raised the budget on Kickstarter because no one in Hollywood was interested. He was planning to sell “Mandela” earlier this year, then found out about “Backrooms” and decided to wait until the week that movie came out. As the bidding war escalated, Koontz and his partners started eliminating studios that didn’t seem to be as familiar with the material.
“They basically went into ChatGPT and said, ‘What’s the next ‘Backrooms?’” he said.
Numerous agents and producers are preparing pitches based on internet horror concepts that they plan to try to sell to studios in the coming weeks, people familiar with the matter said.
Welcome to a real horror: Modern decor may be causing more harm than good!
A large team of researchers from institutions across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, and Canada has published a detailed review arguing that visual discomfort, the headaches, eye strain, nausea, and perceptual distortions that some people experience in response to certain visual stimuli, has a measurable, physical basis in the brain. The paper, published in the journal Vision, pulls together decades of research across neuroscience, architecture, lighting design, and psychology to build a unified theory of why some things are so hard to look at, and what can be done about it.
It argues that the human brain evolved to process the natural world efficiently. When it’s forced to handle the highly repetitive, artificially sharp, and often flickering patterns that dominate modern urban environments — think fluorescent-lit offices, car headlights, striped acoustic panels, or the dense text of a printed page — the researchers argue it may drive greater neural activity than it should, potentially placing excessive demands on the visual cortex.
That metabolic overload, they hypothesize, may be what triggers discomfort, and in people with pattern-sensitive epilepsy, it can provoke seizures.
The live action MOANA movie this week is getting really awful reviews.. Some of the worst of the year, even.. even worse than Masters of the Universe and Supergirl.. But with those movies, at least we saw some real people–not just the paid pros–liking it.
This time ROTTEN TOMATOES is simply *at this is written* showing off the critic score but has yet to publish a rating when compiling the audience score..
— The Horror Report (@TheHorrorReport) July 11, 2026
Here we are… almost half the weekend into the debut of the live action film, and we have yet to get a compiled score of the audience reviews..
Meanwhile EVIL DEAD seems to be doing strong among audiences..
While insiders are reporting that the film is gaining an A- score among the under 18 crowd, the movie is not expected to impact theaters very well financially..
Dr. Phil released a video expressing anger over what he believes has been a 79-year UFO cover-up. He also made a distinction between claims of alien abduction, which he suggested are often difficult to verify and somewhat mocked them, and military reports and scientific testimony, which he said deserve serious attention.
He pointed to the repeated reports of UFO activity near nuclear sites and suggested that aspect of the mystery should concern all of us.
Dr. Phil!!?
The newest trove of UFO documents does not appear to contain anything overly alarming compared to previous document dumps. They always seem to happen on a Friday, and they always bring out the regular suspects proclaiming that what we are seeing is revolutionary and earth-shattering.
Yet for people who have been in UFO circles and researching this topic for years, there doesn’t seem to be much that is truly new or different.
Instead, it feels like more of the same. More grainy photos. More black-and-white military videos. More old memos that seem to confirm what many researchers have believed for decades: unidentified objects have repeatedly been reported around nuclear facilities.
This is disclosure at a snail’s pace for people who wanted answers quickly.
What is genuinely intriguing, however, is the emergence of Dr. Phil as a major voice in the conversation.
But perhaps the biggest question is this: how did Dr. Phil suddenly become one of the most visible faces of disclosure?
There is no evidence that the White House officially chose him for such a role, but his involvement is hard to ignore. He had exclusive access to these newest files before the public. He has also been given extraordinary access in other areas, including spending time with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and documenting their operations.
Now it appears that Dr. Phil is among the first people getting a look at government UFO files before the rest of us.
That raises a fascinating question. If some form of disclosure is eventually coming, is Dr. Phil being positioned as one of the messengers because he has an enormous mainstream audience that extends far beyond the traditional UFO community?
And if we ever do reach the day when aliens finally land on the White House lawn, will Dr. Phil be the one conducting the first interview?
More importantly, if that happens, just how jealous will Oprah be?
The next V/H/S installment is diving headfirst into the world of the SCP Foundation, and that should have horror fans paying attention. According to Bloody Disgusting, the upcoming film will bring the internet’s legendary catalog of mysterious anomalies and secret containment files to one of horror’s most successful anthology franchises. It’s another sign that SCP is continuing its journey from an online phenomenon into mainstream horror.
Personally, I think this is incredibly exciting.
There are already people complaining that Hollywood has run out of original ideas, but maybe that’s looking at it the wrong way. Some of the most creative horror concepts in the world aren’t coming from traditional studios anymore. They’re coming from YouTube creators, independent filmmakers, collaborative writing communities, and passionate fans who have been building incredible worlds for years.
If Hollywood wants to stay relevant, it should absolutely be looking at these creators and giving their ideas a bigger stage.
This is what horror has always done best. It evolves. Every generation finds its own monsters, its own storytelling style, and its own way to scare us. We’ve had slashers. We’ve had supernatural hauntings. We’ve had found footage. Now we’re seeing internet horror, analog horror, liminal spaces, Backrooms, and SCP stepping into the spotlight.
Enough with the same old slashers and bashers. Horror needs a new kind of monster to shake things up, and the SCP universe might be exactly the kind of fresh imagination the genre has been waiting for.
Yesterday I found myself debating with a few people whether July 2nd or July 4th should really be the official holiday.
Now yes, we all know it is the 4th of July, but we also know that independence was technically declared on July 2nd. History is complicated like that. The good news is we are Americans, which means accuracy has never stopped us from celebrating an entire weekend anyway.
And for the last time until 2037, the 4th of July falls on a Saturday. I think there is a song about that somewhere.
We have lamented quite a bit over the past few weeks about these celebrations, about how things feel different this year and how when you compare images of the Bicentennial in 1976, what we are living through now feels like the Temu version of that event. And that is unfortunate because 250 years is a pretty respectable amount of time for a young nation to stay alive.
Although admittedly, in our current state of national division, there aren’t really too many unifying moments as of late..
This year the biggest debate seems to be whether Americans should head to Washington, D.C. for the big celebration. Supporters of Donald Trump are saying it is the place to be while critics are arguing it is less of a patriotic gathering and more of an elaborate product placement campaign.
The survey shows that nearly half of Americans do not know what the 250th anniversary of the United States is actually commemorating.
Let us start with the good news.
Eighty-six percent say they are grateful to be Americans.
Seventy percent say the founding principles of the country are still relevant today. Fifty-six percent worry the United States could lose its freedoms within the next 50 years. And nearly sixty percent say no political party should ever be trusted with too much power. Frankly, that sounds like America in a nutshell.
But here is the catch! Forty-six percent of Americans apparently do not know what America’s 250th anniversary is even about. Only fifty-three percent answered correctly.
And naturally, when you look deeper into the numbers, the group with the highest percentage of confusion is Generation Z, where sixty-one percent reportedly had no idea what exactly we are commemorating this year.
Something appears to have gone wrong in school somewhere or something?
Now before we panic too much, we should acknowledge the source here and remember younger generations have always had gaps in knowledge. I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt because let’s be honest, most generations probably spent their youth not fully understanding everything either.
The divide gets even more interesting when discussing the Founding Fathers. Forty-nine percent of Gen Z sees them as courageous leaders. Compare that to eighty-nine percent of seniors.
We understand why. When you study history, you realize the past was messy, cruel, flawed, and filled with beliefs that do not exactly age well. We can endlessly debate whether it is fair to judge the past through modern lenses.
But perhaps Gen Z should remember one thing. The Founding Fathers were the Gen Z of their time.
Just picture John Hancock standing up in the Continental Congress screaming “six seven.” Picture Benjamin Franklin walking into the room saying, “The vibes are giving independence.” If the Founding Fathers were here today, I suspect they would have loved TikTok. But they are not here.
We are.
And unfortunately, forty-six percent of us are not entirely sure why we are about to do what we are doing this weekend. One hundred percent of us, however, will probably eat a hot dog and stare upward saying “ooh” and “ahh” while fireworks explode over a humid July sky.
Happy Birthday, America.
I suppose we should all wish each other luck as we head toward 300.
And as we have said every year since 2019, you can’t spell America without Erica..
Something very interesting is happening in the horror world right now, and you cannot be entirely convinced studio executives saw it coming.
This summer, films like Obsession and Backrooms became breakout successes, proving that audiences are increasingly willing to embrace a newer and stranger form of horror storytelling. Now, as Hollywood often does, the race is on to capitalize before the mood changes.
In that light, Deadline Hollywood is reporting that another viral YouTube horror phenomenon is headed for the big screen.
The next adaptation will be The Mandela Catalogue.
And here is where things get especially interesting, particularly for older generations who may not have seen this coming.
Steven Spielberg is reportedly among the parties who aggressively pursued the rights during a highly competitive bidding war.
Yes, that Spielberg.
Creator Alex Kister is set to direct the project himself from a screenplay adapted alongside Tyler Clifton. For those unfamiliar, The Mandela Catalogue launched in 2021 and takes place in the fictional Mandela County, Wisconsin, where shapeshifting entities known as Alternates terrorize the population by taking the form of human doppelgangers.
The series has now surpassed one hundred million views online, inspired countless fan projects, and built an intensely loyal audience dedicated to expanding its mythology.
And frankly, analog horror is reigning supreme right now, and I think horror is better off for it.
There are always ebbs and flows to genre filmmaking. Generations change. Tastes evolve. What terrifies one era often gets dismissed by the next.
I promise you, the next generation will eventually come along and say that our modern horror era was terrible and that their version is better.
Just as many today dismiss the slasher boom of the 1980s.
Just as others once moved on from the era of black-and-white monsters and gothic horror.
It happens every single time.
So maybe the lesson is simple.
Enjoy horror while it is here in whatever form it takes.
If you genuinely love the genre, then you should embrace all of it, even when it does not look like the horror you grew up with.
And suddenly, a whole lot of people who have never heard of The Mandela Catalogue are now scrambling to figure out what exactly it is before a film adaptation arrives seemingly out of nowhere.
And somehow, in one of the stranger twists imaginable, a relic from Hollywood’s past has attached himself to one of horror’s newest frontiers.
Angela Nikolau, 33, and her beau — who goes by Ivan “Vanya” Beerkus on social media but was identified as Ivan Kuznetsov, 32, by sources — were carrying a banner reading “when the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.”
The banner’s message is a slightly modified version of a quote frequently misattributed to guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, which was actually spoken by 19th-century British politician William Gladstone..
The couple of done this before and they’ve been seen actually on a Netflix documentary soaring to massive heights.
Police have arrested,l them, the nation was captivated by this Daredevil stunt and now the investigations continuing as to how exactly this happened. In the meantime when it was unfolding live on TV people weren’t sure if it was some sort of a protest, a political message, or as it turned out a kiss scene around the world at the highest spot in New York City with helicopters circling. The love may have abounded but now charges a weight the daredevils who documented their entire ordeal during wind and 100° temperatures in the big apple.
Experts claim that there’s a long-unheard secret tape of an “Invasion of Washington” UFO briefing – and they say the public could hear it very soon.
A tape recording a 1952 conversation between Air Force officials and scientists on unidentified flying objects is soon to be released, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) told a room of UFO transparency advocates at Disclosure Forum 2026.
